Maryland slot proposal draws mixed reaction

Tom Stuckey

Friday, March 7, 2003 | 10:05 a.m.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Gov. Robert Ehrlich's latest slot machine proposal got mixed reaction in the General Assembly on Thursday, with some key leaders complaining they were given misleading information in private briefings with the governor and his staff.

"I certainly left there with a misunderstanding," House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel, said of his Wednesday meeting with Ehrlich at the governor's mansion.

"You've got a certain credibility gap now with the numbers," Busch said. "I'm trying to be generous here ... but at the same time honest."

Sen. Ulysses Currie, D-Prince George's, a slots supporter who stood beside the governor at a news conference where details of the new plan were disclosed Wednesday night, said he felt he had been used.

Currie was not aware until questioned by reporters after the news conference that the share of proceeds going to track owners had been doubled to almost $655 million.

But Currie said he will stick with the governor and will continue to work for approval of the slot machine legislation.

Ehrlich said there was no intention to mislead or misinform Senate and House leaders who received advance word of the new slots proposal at separate briefings Wednesday.

"How dumb would that be?" the governor asked.

The confusion involved a chart handed out at the briefings and the press conference showing that the owners of Laurel, Rosecroft and Pimlico racetracks would get 28.6 percent of the net revenues, a small increase from the 24.8 percent share in the original bill.

But the chart did not indicate that the tracks would also get 23 percent of the gross revenues to pay their expenses, an amount estimated at about $350 million a year, when all 3,500 slots machines are in operation at each of the tracks.

The major effect of the change is to reduce the money designated for public schools from about $800 million annually to $642 million. That would be a little less than the tracks would get, according to an analysis of the governor's new proposal by the Department of Legislative Services.

"They really shot themselves in the foot with the late night presentation that didn't clearly indicate the numbers," said Delegate Kumar Barve, D-Montgomery, the House majority leader. "You can't accept it on face value the way it is presented."

"The revision is unacceptable, period," Barve said.

House Republican Leader Alfred Redmer said it was mentioned at the briefing for House leaders that money spent by track owners to build and operate the new facilities "would be rolled into the expenses, which under the original bill comes off the top."

"I don't recall whether there was a discussion as to what the amount was going to be," he said.

He said Ehrlich "took something that didn't work and made his best effort to give us something that does work."

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, D-Prince George's, one of Ehrlich's strongest allies on the gambling issue, took a much more positive view of the new plan.

"The governor's tried to be fair to all sides and make it workable," Miller said.

He said his task is now to come up with numbers that work for the Senate as well, and it's "going to be very difficult."

Even though Miller sides with Ehrlich on slot machines, he said the new administration is disorganized.

"Upstairs is like a band of wandering gypsies up there, they don't know where they are, where they're from or where they're going." Miller said.